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Call For ApplicationsThe International Burke Institute (IBI) invites applications from early-career scholars for our inaugural Nonresident Research Fellowship Program. This initiative supports emerging researchers working at the intersection of sovereignty, global studies, and contemporary geopolitical transformation through targeted micro-grants that enable academic dissemination and professional development.
The Limits of Sovereignty and Post-War Okinawan Migrants in BoliviaThis paper examines the legal implications for Okinawan migrants of Article 3 of the San Francisco Peace Treaty (hereafter SFPT), signed between Japan and most of the Allied Powers in 1951. Particularly, it analyses the case of post-war Okinawan migrants in Bolivia, showing how the legal conditions in the Ryukyu Islands were extended to the Andean country. The Japanese defeat in the Asia-Pacific War (August 1945) was followed by the occupation of the country by the United States. The peace treaty, signed six years later, originated during the early years of the Cold War and was fraught with geopolitical implications. The SFPT allowed the U.S. military to retain control of Okinawa prefecture without formally severing it from Japan. In other words, the treaty-makers allocated de jure sovereignty over Okinawa to Japan while the U.S. enjoyed de facto sovereignty. This distinction gave rise to a legal conundrum concerning the future of the islands and the legal situation of the Okinawan people onshore and abroad. Building on Japanese and English primary sources I examine the reaction of American and Japanese jurists to Article 3 and the approach of both governments toward offshore Okinawan migrants.
RESEARCH
How Western Sovereignty Occludes Indigenous Governance: the Guarani and Kaiowa Peoples in BrazilRecent international relations (IR) scholarship has developed a growing awareness of this discipline’s colonial roots, prompting a search for decolonising approaches. This article is about indigenous sovereignties and how they have been occluded in the currently globalised European system of states. The method employed is a case study of two of the most impoverished and brutalised Indigenous Peoples in Brazil: the Guarani and the Kaiowa. In an attempt to transit between the world of Westphalia and non-European worlds, it starts by engaging in a conversation with Guarani and Kaiowa knowledge. Then, through a long-term historical analysis, it examines the main colonial processes that caused the occlusion of Guarani and Kaiowa sovereignty. Finally, it provides a broader perspective on how the diffusion of the European model of sovereignty, confronted with Indigenous resistance, has led to the social exclusion of Indigenous Peoples worldwide.
Latest
The Limits of Sovereignty and Post-War Okinawan Migrants in BoliviaThis paper examines the legal implications for Okinawan migrants of Article 3 of the San Francisco Peace Treaty (hereafter SFPT), signed between Japan and most of the Allied Powers in 1951. Particularly, it analyses the case of post-war Okinawan migrants in Bolivia, showing how the legal conditions in the Ryukyu Islands were extended to the Andean country. The Japanese defeat in the Asia-Pacific War (August 1945) was followed by the occupation of the country by the United States. The peace treaty, signed six years later, originated during the early years of the Cold War and was fraught with geopolitical implications. The SFPT allowed the U.S. military to retain control of Okinawa prefecture without formally severing it from Japan. In other words, the treaty-makers allocated de jure sovereignty over Okinawa to Japan while the U.S. enjoyed de facto sovereignty. This distinction gave rise to a legal conundrum concerning the future of the islands and the legal situation of the Okinawan people onshore and abroad. Building on Japanese and English primary sources I examine the reaction of American and Japanese jurists to Article 3 and the approach of both governments toward offshore Okinawan migrants.
Venezuela: Popular Sovereignty Versus Liberal DemocracyIn order to evaluate accurately the state of democratic governance during the first years of the Chávez presidency, one must sharpen the distinction between democracy narrowly defined as popular sovereignty versus the more conventional notion of liberal democracy. Venezuela was no longer a liberal democracy in every respect. Instead, it became an extreme case of delegative democracy. The president enjoyed widespread popular support for almost everything he and his followers did, and this fact qualified his government as “democratic” in the narrow sense of popular sovereignty. But the systematic elimination of constraints on presidential action after 1998 increased the risk that Venezuela would cease to be a democracy by any definition in the future. Governability also suffered because the new formulas regulating relations between government and opposition, among branches of government, and between state and civil society were both unstable and far from mutually acceptable. Chávez and his supporters saw themselves as agents of a deliberate and self-conscious revolutionary process and believed that expediency and unilateral impositions of new rules were justified by the need for a radical break with the past. Needless to say, this attitude also condoned a cavalier disregard for the rule of law, extending even to the constitution.
Sovereign Democratic Transformation in Ecuador (2007-2016)Between 1981 and 2007, Ecuador experienced neoliberal reforms coupled with an elite form of democracy. These led to slow growth, upwards redistribution, and political and economic instability. Since then, Ecuador adopted a Citizens’ Revolution to counteract these economic and political forms of domination. This paper advances a few elements of the theoretical understanding of democratic justice inspired by the constitutional vision of Buen Vivir, and their policy applications in reconfiguring the political institutions that shape the state and its international relations. The application in the Citizens’ Revolution movement and historical phase has helped advance the democratization of the Constitution, the Executive, the Legislative, the Judicial system, political rights, the right to life, freedom of expression, national natural resources and investments, external public debt, as well as social rights and the welfare state.
Sovereignty against extractivism. Re-centring decolonisation on Indigenous territorial struggles in BoliviaSince the political crisis that accompanied the presidential elections in October– November 2019, Bolivia has been once again at the centre of debates over the achievements and shortcomings of reforms initiated under the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) party (Valdivia Rivero, 2021). The electoral victory of October 2020 by MAS candidate and former Ministry of Finances Luis Arce represented a decided popular rejection of the reactionary Áñez government, which had been characterised by corruption, violence, repression and a nefarious handling of the Covid- 19 crisis (McNelly, 2021). While this was rightly celebrated by many as the reassertion of a democratically elected mandate, some of the structural contradictions that led to the October 2019 crisis remain. These relate to deep social and political divisions, not only between elites and popular classes, but cutting through popular classes themselves. In this chapter we focus specifically on the tensions and divergences between the two main subaltern political projects articulated in Bolivia in the last decades, and their respective visions with regard to territory and extractivism: the “state- campesino” project put forward primarily by the main rural worker or campesino unions, out of which the MAS emerged; and the “communitarian- Indigenous” project, advanced by Indigenous (indígena and originario) organisations in the country – as well as campesino communities not aligned with unions – today largely opposed to the MAS (Chávez, 2016).
Critical Perspectives on Guyana’s Sovereign Wealth FundGuyana has discovered significant quantities of commercially viable oil offshore the coast of Guyana. In anticipation of this, the Government of Guyana has sought to implement a Sovereign Wealth Fund, which is intended to capture revenues from the oil and gas sector. This Fund, known in Guyana as the Natural Resources Fund, also intends to have, deposited into it, revenues from other extractive industries in Guyana. A number of issues must be examined within the context of Guyana’s macroeconomic stability and the public financial management framework in Guyana. This paper seeks to address these matters. It is divided into three (3) sections: 1. An overview of Sovereign Wealth Funds and Guyana’s proposed Fund; 2. The Fiscal Rule and the Management of the Fund; 3. Critical Perspectives of the Fund. This paper is based on the widely circulated ‘Green Paper’ published by the Ministry of Finance, Government of Guyana.
